RAF Thurleigh
About
RAF Thurleigh opened north of Bedford in 1941 and is best known as a United States Army Air Forces base, Station 111. The 306th Bombardment Group flew Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses from it, taking part in the first Eighth Air Force raid into Germany and flying among the highest mission totals of any American heavy-bomber group, at heavy cost. After the war the airfield became the Royal Aircraft Establishment’s Bedford site for flight research; flying ended in the 1990s and the site is now a business park and motor circuit, with a small museum.
Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including RAF Thurleigh — Wikipedia and Thurleigh — Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.
Photographs
ⓘ licence & credit
Jonathan Billinger / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex-military_infrastructure_2_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1420812.jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
Jonathan Billinger / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex-military_infrastructure_1_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1420805.jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
assumed USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B-17g-44-6604-44-8676-306bg-thurleigh.jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
assumed USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B-17f-42-6744-306bg-turleigh.jpgView source & full licence →ⓘ licence & credit
USAAF / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thurleigh-12Mar1943.pngView source & full licence →No people are cross-referenced to this airfield yet. Links appear as squadron postings, crews and service records are added.